Monday, October 29, 2018

The Film Archives: This is Your Life With Ralph Edwards- Jayne Mansfield in 1960

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, this is your life. 
"Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 -- June 29, 1967) was an American actress in film, theatre, and television, a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. More Jayne Mansfield: Amazon"

FromThe Film Archives

This Is Your Life Jayne Mansfield, is a short story in years, but a fascinating story that plays more like a long, but great soap opera for a woman who comes from very humble meanings at least in the sense that wasn't known at all until she went to Hollywood and started landing parts in movies. But then hits it big in Hollywood in the mid 1950s with roles in The Burglar, Will Success Spoil Rockwell Hunter, The Girl Can't Help it, making it clear to Hollywood that she was a good comedian and comedic actress with great timing including musical comedy. Had Jayne stayed on that track I believe we're talking about one of the best comedians and musical comedians of her generation at least.

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, this is your life 
But by 1960 she was moving away from Hollywood because she was tired of just doing comedy and wanted to expand her career as an actress and move into drama. The problem that she had was that Hollywood just saw her as a comedian and as a sex symbol. A woman who was obviously gorgeous with the great body, yet who was also as cute as a little girl really up until she died in 1967. And they wanted to use her to sell movies with her sex appeal and comedy. But she wanted to move to drama instead which is who she ends up in Britain in the early 1960s with the movie Too Hot To Handle. But unless you're a huge, dedicated fan of Jayne Mansfield or have lived in Britain, you probably haven't heard of Too Hot To Handle.

Source:The Film Archives- Baby Jayne Mansfield, this is your life 
It's Hollywood where Jayne always belonged and if it was drama she wanted to do, then it was soap operas and dramatic comedy like working with Alfred Hitchcock where she should've been working. Instead of trying to do serious roles in TV and films. I tweeted on Twitter ( of all places ) a few weeks ago about Jayne Mansfield with one of my followers ( but not my only follower, ha, ha ) replying to me that she was never taken seriously and wasn't a serious actress. Which is true, but I would qualify that by saying that she wasn't meant to be taken seriously. She wasn't a dumb blonde, but she wasn't cut out for serious roles.

Similar to Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, Bette Midler, and I'm sure other actresses and comedians she was a natural comedian who was born to entertain and to make people laugh. Which is what she should've been doing her whole career and would've had a great career in Hollywood as a comedian and not try to move away from that.   

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Friday, October 26, 2018

Vanity Fair: 'How NYC's Richest Socialites Were Scammed By Anna Delvey'


Source:Vanity Fair- Great question! 
“Anna Delvey finagled her way into the world of New York City’s elite class with seamless ease. That is, until it all came falling apart.”

Source:The Cut- Anna Delvey.
From Vanity Fair

Source:The Cut- Anna Delvey on the right and a friend?
If you’re familiar with The Billionaire Boys Club that was lead by Joe Hunt in the early and mid 1980s that was based on Los Angeles, the Anna Delvey story should sound familiar. Except that Anna Delvey was not an investor not even a fake investor like the BBC and Delvey hasn’t murdered and spending the rest of her life in prison.

What’s she’s apparently guilty of is scamming rich New Yorkers out of their money. Looks like she was supporting herself by just hanging out and partying with rich New Yorkers. With not a real job or income of her own.

What she does have in common with Joe Hunt and the BBC is this need to be seen with what’s known as the beautiful people. Very attractive, sexy successful, hip yuppies in New York who have the best of everything when it comes to material. The best looking and most expensive clothing, best homes, cars, go to the best restaurants, hang out and party with the most popular people, as is she’s part of this crowd and his also a very successful yuppie in New York as well.

When the fact the only thing she has in common with these people is a need to be seen living this lifestyle with these people. But someone on her own would struggle to pay for gas in her car and pay for a motel room at the Motel Six or some other place. Perhaps Bob’s Motel and Diner in New Brunswick, New Jersey or whatever the location.

The main problem that Ann Delvey had is that she had first class expensive taste, but with an income that couldn’t even pay for a coach seat. The way she paid for her first class lifestyle was by convincing some I guess some seriously gullible New Yorkers that she was also very successful and wealthy on her own. Perhaps these people believe in Santa Clause as well and not sure about who murdered President John Kennedy.

You would think people for their educational and professional backgrounds, would be smart enough to not get fooled by someone like this. And just see her as a wannabe celebrity party girl, groupie ( to use another term ) and just blow her off, but that didn’t happen here. 

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Wednesday, October 24, 2018

The Atlantic: Rebecca Traister- 'Can Women's Anger Save America?'

Source:The Atlantic Magazine- From author Rebecca Traister. 
“In America today, women are angry. But this isn’t a modern phenomenon, argues the author Rebecca Traister. In her new book, “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” Traister details how female rage has long been the country’s political fuel. She expounded on this idea at Aspen Ideas Festival in June, where, in a video interview, she discussed how the fury of American women—from the suffragists to the abolitionists to Rosa Parks—has catalyzed major political movements. Read a review of Traister’s book on:The Atlantic."

Source:The Atlantic

I'm cool with anger not that I enjoy being angry or seeing angry people ( especially with me ) but I'm fine with justifiable anger just as long as it's used to bring about positive change and used in a constructive sense.

Anyone can be angry with some or something, but unless they use that anger and express how they feel to make things better and express while they're angry with someone or about something, maybe you believe someone screwed you at work or you were turned down for a promotion and it went to someone who is less qualified, you're boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating on you, whatever the case is and whoever you believe wronged you unless you express you're feelings and do something about it to improve your situation, anger is nothing more than wasted emotion and energy. Emotion and energy that could've been used to to make things better for you.

Not to get too political but by message for Democrats and Independents who don't like President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress you can be as angry as you want to with the Republican Party especially in Washington right now, but if you don't bother to vote for candidates who oppose what they're doing, you're wasting your time and the country's time as well. Bottled up emotion is as useful and makes as much sense as trying to swim up stream with one arm and leg going into a 20 mile and hour and wind.

Anger is only a useful emotion when it's used to make things better even for yourself or people you care about. The same thing with screwing up and making mistakes if you don't learn from them, you'll make the exact same mistakes again and you'll be nothing more than a screwup who is perhaps learning impaired as well. Whether it's women who care about the me too movement or just hate Donald Trump and his treatment of women today and in the past, unless you use your anger to bring about positive change, all you're doing is trying to swim upstream with one arm and one leg in a 20 mile hour wind and your anger is nothing more than wasted energy and emotion. 

You can also see this post at FreeState Now, on WordPress. 

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Thursday, October 11, 2018

Sophia Loren: 'Education is a Lifelong Pursuit'

Source: Chris Veerabadran- The Italian Goddess Sophia Loren, with some sound educational advice.


“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
A wise quote by Sophia Loren an Italian film actress
If you enjoyed today`s wise quote please Like and Share this video. For more short anime videos like this make sure to subscribe.”

Source: AZ Quotes- The Italian Goddess Sophia Loren.
From The Toothless Owl

The Italian Goddess Sophia Loren, making it extremely clear that she isn't just a great body with a hot baby face that she actually has not just a brain inside, but a big brain inside that's always not just working, but working well to improve herself and people around her. Her quote here about education is a perfect example of that. Only the dumbest of the dumb people who had brain surgeries on them by people who were simply stealing brains with no intentions of fixing the brains and giving them back to the rightful owners, believe that education stops once we graduate college or in some cases still high school.

High school, is where we go to prepare ourselves for college and in some cases so we can get a job once we graduate from high school and make sure we have the basic skills down. Reading, writing, math, history, social studies, etc. College is where we go to prepare ourselves for life as adults and get the skills that we need to get ourselves a good job and be able to support ourselves in life with a good job. As well as to party, have a good time, meet people and other things as well. But life, is where we get the best and most important lessons about ourselves and where we really get to learn about ourselves and people around us. How to treat others and how others will treat us. Who we can trust, who we can count on, who we should look out for, so we don't get too close to them, because they can't be trusted.

There those old expressions that life is a journey or highway and as true as they are life is so much more than that. Life is an experience that starts when we're born and doesn't end until we die. You can also say that life is a roller coaster with all it's ups and downs that is performed by the most imperfect of people known as human beings where we're always trying new things and having new experiences and hopefully learning from them. The people who do best in life ride the fewest roller coasters and when they take risks they take calculated risks knowing that if it works out they'll do very well, but if those calculated risks don't work out there won't be that heavy of price to pay for it at least not to the point that it can ruin their lives, because they're acting on experience and knowledge and know going in what the risks and rewards were, because they did a real cost-benefit analysis.

The people who do best in life, the winners in life are the people who never get off the journey of life and are always moving forward and learning in life. Never too up and never too down, because even when they make mistakes they use them and take advantage of them by using them as opportunities for self-improvement. Instead of saying to themselves, "I really screwed up here, I'm never going to try that again!" Or acting as if their life is over and they'll never recover from that mistake.

But when people are up they perhaps climbed that mountaintop and now feel they're at the top, they take that for what it's worth knowing that if they don't continue to improve and to learn that the next stop for them can be only be down, because they stop learning and improving and become overconfident. People tend to make mistakes when they stop learning and improving and make decisions based on old information and what they're done before and stop learning and improving. People are most likely to make mistakes in life when they're either overconfident, or are out of control and acting on emotion instead of reason and intelligence.

It's that old quote from President Richard Nixon during his last day as President in 1974 because he was forced to resign because of his involvement in Watergate, where he says, "only when you've been in the deepest valley can you know what it's like to be on the highest mountain." Life is an experience where we all go through our highs and downs and all at some point in our life have been at the valley at some point going through a really rough time. But the only people who've gotten to the highest mountain or at the top of any mountain are the people who've learned from their bad experiences and used them to improve themselves. And we're never satisfied at being on the bottom or even in the middle of the pack, because they took advantage of what life has to offer which is really education about ourselves and the people around us. That is what I get from this Sophia Loren quote. 

You can also see this post at The FreeState, on Blogger.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Lauren Bacall: On Hollywood Marriages

Source:Lauren Bacall- Hollywood Goddess Lauren Bacall on Hollywood marriages.
"In this episode of 20th Century Style Icons, we're going to "put our lips together and blow" as we examine the never-changing signature style of legendary Lauren Bacall."

Source:The Ultimate Fashion Industry- Hollywood Goddess Lauren Bacall. 
From The Ultimate Fashion History

Lauren Bacall's quote about marriage, pretty much sums up what Hollywood marriages ( which isn't the same thing as marriage ) are really about which is that they tend to be business arraignments and investments. That are done to promote the two people's involved career. "If Sally marries Joe or vice-versa, it could help their career and lead to bigger parts and be great publicity for them. Even if Sally and Joe met yesterday and perhaps have never heard of each other."

Which is a little extreme and I'm not implying that Hollywood marriages are Saudi marriages and prearranged and that the two people involved don't actually know each other ( at least a day in advance ) before they marry each other, but they do get advice from their handlers something to affect that if they're seen with a certain actor or actress that could help their careers. Or you'll see actors and actresses marrying directors, writers, producers, Hollywood execs in an attempt to build their careers and look better in public than they normally do.

There are marriages and romances that don't seem like Hollywood and are actually real. Kurt Russell with Goldie Hawn, is a perfect example of that. Kate Hudson, ( the daughter of Goldie Hawn ) has always seen Kurt Russell as her father and not her biological father, because Russell is the man who raised her and has been with her most of her life and they love each other. Jeff Bridges marriage to Susan Geston, they've been married since 1977.

If you see a Hollywood marriage reach double figures in years even 10, you could win an award for that perhaps end up in some museum as being part of one of the longest lasting marriages in Hollywood history. Hollywood marriages generally aren't built to last because they're not built on love and built by people who are married to just be married in many cases and there not built on love in many cases as well. And are told that if they marry this person that could lead to bigger roles in their career.

But these are just some examples of why Hollywood marriages don't tend to work out and why America has a 50% divorce rate with Hollywood being a big reason for it, but not the only one. Divorce is common in any industry where stress is a big part of that life and where the people in it value their careers really over anything else. The law profession is a perfect example of that, pro sports would be another one, politics obviously. Not just Hollywood but the entertainment industry in general like with music is another good example of that.

But also because married life can seem boring for people who are use to being seen all the time and are use to going out and not accustomed to being home even if that have kids. And are use to being around multiple men and women and are really just interested in having a good time. Married life can also hurt one's career in Hollywood especially if they're seen as somewhat wild.

And also because actors and actresses build their own brands and reputations and play characters that are very close to who they are in real life and feel the need to keep that reputation and play their Hollywood parts in real life and not just be who they are on TV and in the movies.

So Lauren Bacall's quote about divorce being about who gets the most publicity afterwords is spot on as far as what Hollywood marriages tend to actually be about. 

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on Blogger.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust: The Girl Can't Help It (1956) 'Jayne Mansfield: Doing The Jerri Jordan Walk'

Source: Jayne Mansfield Diamonds To Dust- Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield, in The Girl Can't Help It. 

"Jayne Mansfield doing the Jerri Jordan walk and later emphasizes large milk jugs. Scene from 1956's The Girl Can't Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield." 

The Girl Can't Help It from 1956, is a movie that Jayne Mansfield was born to be in and Jerri Jordan might be the character she was born to play. Jayne, was put on this planet to entertain, make people, to be the Halloween eye candy. And I'm not criticizing her for any of this or calling her a bimbo or anything like that. I have a lot of respect for her as an entertainer and have never seen her as a bimbo.

Source: Little White Lies- Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield, in The Girl Can't Help It
And there are a lot of great entertainers who've made their careers as comedians like Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Bob Newhart, Bette Midler, who were born to make people laugh and bring smiles to their faces and have made great careers for them. Jayne Mansfield, isn't any of these people, but those entertainers aren't Jayne Mansfield with her goddess little girl adorable features, with her great comedic and musical abilities.

Source: Kenneth H. Smith- Jayne Mansfield as Jerri Jordan, in The Girl Can't Help It 
What also made Jayne great in The Girl Can't Help It, was not that she was basically herself, because she wasn't in that movie. Rockwell Hunter, which came out in 1957 where Jayne plays Hollywood actress Rita Marlowe is where Jayne basically plays herself in that movie. The Girl Can't Help It, she plays the girlfriend of a Hollywood mogul who has been in a career slump and hasn't produced a hit or really anything in a while and he sees his girlfriend Jerri Jordan ( played by Jayne ) as his next superstar and ticket back in the industry that will jumpstart his career again.

The problem is unlike in Rockwell Hunter, Jerri wants nothing to do with being a star and celebrity. The only career goal that she seems to have in this movie is to be the housewife of the man that she falls in love with. If you're familiar with the real Jayne Mansfield, you know that always wanted to be a Hollywood starlet.

Jayne Mansfield, always saw more for herself in her career in Hollywood which is probably why it dried up because she wanted to be a great dramatic actress and consistently turned down parts in comedies including musical comedies, but came back to Hollywood in early 1960s after working in  Britain to do Too Hot To Handle and had a major role as George Raft's girlfriend in The George Raft Story, Kiss Me Stupid in 1964, and then a Guide For The Married Man in 1967, which she made right before she tragically died in 1967.

 I believe Jayne could've had a great career as a comedic actress and just as a musical comedian as well similar to Bette Midler where she would go on stage to sing, dance, and do standup and joke around with the audience. Which is what she was doing when she was on the nightclub circuit in the last years of her life., but had a much better career with and doing more films, had she not left Hollywood in the late 1950s and early 60s and continued down that career path, but she thought she should be doing more than just comedy.  

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on Blogger.